I you haven't watched this yet, you really should…

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

In our first podcast of 2010 we chat to Greenbelt's incoming Festival Director, Gawain Hewitt.

In a departure from the format of previous Greenbelt podcasts, Phil Smith, Greenbelt's Head of Communications, chats to Gawain Hewitt, Greenbelt's newly appointed Festival Director, about his life, his interests, his faith, and his feelings about and vision for the role he's about to take up on 8 February.

Click to download the .mp3 podcast file.

You can read more about Gawain's appointment over here.

Credits
Questions posed by Phil Smith
Questions answered by Gawain Hewitt
Mixed – bigJohn Noble
Executive Produced by Paul Northup

The Site Vibing volunteer team make the Festival site look amazing. Every gold-wrapped tree, hand-crafted venue sign, or triangle of bunting is made by this creative bunch.

And now, they're inviting you to join them!

The Site Vibers are running four Making Days in Leeds and London, at which the creative among you can contribute a little time and talent to making Cheltenham Racecourse a bit less like a racecourse and a bit more like Greenbelt.

If you have skills in cutting and sewing fabric, drawing and colouring, or crafty construction with card, plastic and other materials, then the Site Vibing Team would love to see you in Leeds in March, and in London in May…

LEEDS – Saturday 27th & Sunday 28th March
Left Bank Leeds
Cardigan Rd, Leeds, LS6 1LJ
(Click here for a map)
Time 10am to 5pm

LONDON – Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd May (please note changed dates)
Greenbelt HQ
All Hallows On The Wall, 83 London Wall, London, EC2M 5ND
(Click here for a map)
Time 10am to 5pm

For more information, check the Site Vibing Throughout The Year page, which also contains patterns for making bunting, or email volunteers@greenbelt.org.uk to RSVP and be added to the list.

Share your creativity with the GB community, and make something beautiful!

As the effects of the earthquake in Haiti continue to occupy people's thoughts, we would like to encourage Greenbelters to consider giving to help the people of Haiti endure this ongoing disaster.

Since the earthquake struck on Tuesday 12 January, the devastation has affected three million people, and the Haitian Interior Minister estimates that it will claim up to 200,000 lives.

Greenbelt's patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sent this message of support:-

"I am profoundly shocked and concerned to hear about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. As the news comes through, we are learning more about the tragic loss of life, injury suffered and terrible damage to the country. We stand alongside all the people in Haiti affected by this terrible disaster in prayer, thought and action as the situation unfolds. We pray for the rescue of those still trapped and look towards the rebuilding of lives and communities.

"I commend the swift action of the UK Government's Department for International Development and the relief agencies and churches in mobilising an emergency response. In this time of catastrophic loss and destruction, I urge the public to hold the people of Haiti in their prayers, and to give generously and urgently to funding appeals set up for relief work."

Both our partners – Christian Aid and DFID – are working hard in the area, and would value your support, both donations and prayers.

For more information on the development of the crisis, and for a link to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee's appeal for Haiti, visit the DFID website.

To donate to Christian Aid, and for more information about their campaign to Drop Haiti's Debt, click on the banner on the right-hand side of the Greenbelt website, or click here.

When asked to write ten resolutions for a greener New Year, GB09 speaker Tamsin Omond instead came up with twelve. Twelve examples of "things that are filling the space between more radical activism and the real world – that are pulling the mainstream into a sustainable vision".

There are some great tips in there for Greenbelters looking to act upon things they heard in Tamsin's talks; things like…

6. I’m starting to like vegetables a lot, especially from my friends’ allotments, terraces or window boxes. And an ex who works on an oil rig(!) has been throwing “meat-free Monday” parties. (http://www.meatfreemondays.co.uk)

Read the rest by clicking here.

Tamsin's talk from GB09 – "WWJD?" – is available from the Greenbelt Talks Shop, and her book "RUSH! The Making of a Climate Activist" is available from Amazon.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Gawain Hewitt as the new Festival Director. Gawain will start his new position at Greenbelt in February 2010.

Gawain said of his new appointment: “Having always admired Greenbelt I am delighted to be appointed as Festival Director. It's a fantastic event and I am looking forward to working with Greenbelt's team to continue its success over the coming years."

Gawain Hewitt is currently Creative Director and Events Organiser at Community Music, a charity working with young people, underprivileged children and adults. In 2003 he helped set up an educational social enterprise company – Skillz – and has developed this as Director over the past seven years.

Greenbelt Trustees, who made the appointment, considered Gawain to be a strong communicator, an engaging manager, commercially aware, yet driven by the satisfaction gained in helping people realise and fulfil their potential through engagement with the arts. He has led initiatives in engaging individuals in this area which have been driven by his personal passion for social justice, and has a successful track record in the planning and organisation of numerous live music events.

Gawain Hewitt succeeds Beki Bateson, who left Greenbelt in September 2009 after nine years in the role.

Andy Turner, Chair of Trustees, is excited at the appointment and is looking forward to working closely with Gawain over the coming years: “Greenbelt is a festival like no other. Of significance to many people, assembled by an eclectic group of staff and volunteers, with a diverse and growing audience. Finding the right person with the vocation and that astonishing mix of skills, experience, vision and ideas to take us forward as Festival Director was always going to be a challenge. I'm therefore really pleased that following an exhaustive process, involving some excellent candidates, we have been able to appoint Gawain Hewitt as the new Festival Director. With an active Christian faith and a passion for justice and the arts, in Gawain we have appointed someone sensitive and astute, an entrepreneur who will lead Greenbelt, helping us to deepen our artistic vision, widen our community of volunteers and supporters, broaden our audience and nurture that important distinctiveness. With a background in charities and enterprise, Gawain is well placed to work with staff and volunteers to grow ambition. This is an exciting and challenging time for Greenbelt. I’m looking forward to Gawain starting, and the opportunity to work with him on the task ahead.”

The next Greenbelt podcast will feature an interview with Gawain, so if you want to find out more, come back in two weeks time.

I'm a big fan of bookclub meetings with friendly banter, good books and being a meeting of minds. The bookclub meetings held at the Festival last year were an absolute treat. Following the comedic revelation that I was not Carol Ann Duffy there were some wonderful insightful comments about her poetry. Sally Nicholls also gave a wonderful reading from Jackie Kay's short stories. One of my highlights of the Festival was hearing Jasper Fforde & Andrew Tate (two of my favourite writers) discussing Walden which somehow drifted into a discussion about the Muppets. It was an essentially Greenbelt moment – profound, spiritual and witty.

The people who came along to the sessions shared from their own experiences, talked of their responses to the books. (Thank you for that, I was deeply moved by some of the things you shared & said).

This year the literature subgroup have popped their collective thinking hats on, had some passionate discussion and have picked three very different books which we commend to you for discussion at the Festival.

1) Ali Smith – The First Person and Other Stories

Ali Smith is a wonderful writer and in the short story form her skills really zing. Smith has a knack for capturing conversations, pinning moments in a relationship & unlocking the process that goes into writing a novel. There's much here to delight and inspire, some of these stories will leave a smile in your mind.

2) Thornton Wilder – The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Wilder's novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. The story of the collapse in 1714 of "the finest bridge in all Peru", killing five people, it is a parable of the struggle to find meaning in chance and in inexplicable tragedy – a struggle many people face today. In the wake of the 9/11 tragedy Prime Minister Tony Blair quoted from the novel at a memorial service.

In the novel, a Franciscan missionary sees the bridge "divide and fling five gesticulating ants into the valley below". He then sets out to trace the lives of the victims, linked only by their deaths, in an effort to understand the seemingly random nature of the tragedy. Wilder later explained that he was seeking to address the question: "Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual's own will?

3) Star of the Morning: The Extraordinary life of Lady Hester Stanhope by Kirsten Ellis

The life of Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839) sounds like something from fiction. She was Prime Minister Pitt's niece and companion. She joined her brother on a voyage to Spain and kept travelling. She travelled to Constantinople and Damascus and was the first European woman to enter the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, but eventually made a home in Joun, in the mountains of Lebanon. When her clothes were lost in a shipwreck she dressed like a Turkish man, smoked a long water-pipe and rejected her birth culture. Famous for her wit, beauty and energy, she became the greatest woman traveller of her day. She developed a passion for the Arab world and forged lasting friendships with pashas, emirs and sheikhs – and was revered by the Bedouin, whose cause she championed, as their ‘Star of the Morning.’

If you don't own any of these books, you should! Click on the titles of the books to buy them from Amazon, and a portion of money will go to Greenbelt. Your local library should also stock these.

You'll find these discussions in The Hub the venue where Visual Arts and Literature coexist. Bring a mug of something warm and prepare to share your thoughts with other equally passionate souls. I can't wait to hear what people will have to say about these books. Will you be there? You won't want to miss this, it's going to be great!

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Ben Whitehouse is Literature Coordinator for the Greenbelt festival. He writes a blog – White Like Milk – and you can follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Benjiw

Following on from our highlighting of the Kairos Palestine Document, we'd like to draw your attention to a second document that was published before Christmas by a variety of organisations including Amnesty International, Oxfam, CAFOD, and Greenbelt partners Christian Aid.

Entitled "Failing Gaza: No rebuilding, no recovery, no more excuses", the report is an analysis of the aftermath of Israel's Operation Cast Lead, and a condemnation of the lack of international action to secure the ending of the blockade of Gaza, which is preventing reconstruction and recovery. The report highlights the grim reality endured by 1.5 million people in Gaza, and urges people to take action by reminding elected officials of their responsibility to traumatised, impoverished and isolated people.

Download and read the document, and then take a moment to send an email to the Foreign Secretary David Milliband MP to intervene and end the blockade.

—

The short film No Way Through by Alexandra Monro and Sheila Menon also highlights mobility restrictions in the West Bank and is well worth a watch. It won an award  as part of the Short Film Project from Ctrl Alt Shift.

Bono – who probably won't be at next year's Festival – had an article in yesterdays NY Times listing 10 ideas for the future.

Our favourite idea is the Festival of Abraham:

Here’s something that could never have happened in the Naughts but will maybe be possible in the Tweens or Teens — if there’s a breakthrough in the Mideast peace process. The idea is an arts festival that celebrates the origin of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Every year it could be held in a different location; Jerusalem would obviously be the best place to start.

In Ireland, at the height of the “Troubles,” it was said that the only solution for rabid sectarianism was to let 1,000 punk-rock bands bloom: music helped create a free space for dialogue (of a high-volume variety). So no politicians allowed. Artists only.

Read more over here.

In December, a group of Palestinian Christians, representing a variety of churches and church-related organisations, issued "The Kairos Palestine Document" – an animated and prayerful call for an end to the occupation of Palestine by Israel. The call comes at a time when many Palestinians believe they have reached a dead end, and raises questions to the international community, political leaders in the region, and churches worldwide about their contribution to the Palestinian people's pursuit of freedom.

The document – entitled "A Moment Of Truth" – echoes a similar one issued by South African churches in the mid-1980s at the height of repression under apartheid, with a similar aim of galvanising churches and the wider public. It raises the challenge to religious and political leaders in Palestinian and Israeli society, international community, and to "our Christian brothers and sisters in the churches" around the world, of the urgency for peace with justice; yet even in the midst of what they describe as "our catastrophe", the call is described as a word of faith, hope and love.

With Greenbelt's campaign continuing into the new year, we would encourage you to download and read the document or visit the Kairos website for more ways to get involved.